CuteFaceJay
Member
Why isn't Gameboy a thing anymore?
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The GBA was basically SNES2 and the pinnacle of 2D game design - change my mind
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HaveButOneLife
Banned
Legacy of Goku!
Nightrunner
Member
I've got even more games to add to your list:
Wario Land 4
Sonic Advance 1 & 2
Puyo Pop
Drill Dozer
Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town
Dragon Ball: Advanced Adventure
Mega Man Battle Network ( at least 3 good games in there)
TMNT beat em up by Ubi (best TMNT game since SNES/GEN days easily)
Medal of Honor Infiltrator
Mega Man Zero - 3 really good games here
Car Battler Joe
Summon Night Swordcraft Story 1 & 2
Klonoa 2: Dream Champ Tournament
Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith ( a good SW themed classic 2d beat em up)
Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories
Yggdra Union
Riviera: The Promised Land
Rebelstar: Tactical Command
Boktai 1 & 2 ( a bit gimmicky and experimental but there's nothing like these games)
Zone of the Enders: The Fist of Mars (Serialized anime style storytelling in a GBA game)
Overall the GBA has an amazing library and to call it a port/conversion machine is insulting IMO.
Edit: Forgot another brilliant beat em up Double Dragon Advance as well as Sabre Wulf and two Kirby games.
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Thaedolus
Gold Member
+Amazing library
-First gen with no backlight was horrible
+SP fixed that and had a better design overall
-Two face buttons limited things or required workarounds
-Terrible sound quality
Before cell phones and such though, it was pretty alright for something to do on the go.
-First gen with no backlight was horrible
+SP fixed that and had a better design overall
-Two face buttons limited things or required workarounds
-Terrible sound quality
Before cell phones and such though, it was pretty alright for something to do on the go.
Starlight Lotice
Member
Pinnacle of Handheld Design, but not of 2D.
However, I love the graphics of Fire Emblem/Sacred Stones.
However, I love the graphics of Fire Emblem/Sacred Stones.
Dr. Claus
Vincit qui se vincit
And all those original games are good to great games, but they are either not *as* good as what was on previous systems (Gunstar Heroes, Metroid Fusion/Zero Mission, Minish Cap, Tactics Ogre, Fire Emblem, Tactics Advance, etc) or actually were better/unique to the system, but they didn't make up the majority of the library (Mario and Luigi, Astro Boy, Golden Sun, Wario Ware).
Almost all of the best 2D games on the platform were slightly downgraded ports from previous generation home consoles. That isn't a bad thing, mind you. Being able to play these amazing games on the go was brilliant! If we were having a conversation of if the GBA had an amazing library of titles - I would absolutely agree and I would have a hard time thinking anyone else wouldn't. However, that isn't the discussion - the discussion is if it is the pinnacle of 2D Game Design and I just can't agree. The new games aren't inherently better than what came before, despite being great, enjoyable games in their own right. And the ports such as Yoshi's Island are objectively worse than their SNES counterparts, as their design is hindered a bit releasing on the handheld system.
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molasar
Banned
Yes, that is why it takes ages to make them right. Though definitely this is a great thing to not worry about hardware limitations nowadays. We just lost so many years by a push for 3D graphics in the industry. As a result a lot of artists stopped honing their skills in 2D art.
Even if we still get some really good 2D games, one genre I miss the most is 2D beat'em up (done right). After 90s no new game made me satisfied. Also I had high hopes regarding infamous Paprium, but it ended up stuck in a development hell.
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TylersProphecy4.0
Banned
The pinnacle of 2d design was probably ps1/saturn. I get the comparison to the SNES, but I always thought the gba was a lot like the original ps1, sans 3d capabilities. The ds basically IS a portable ps1 for me.
Daniel Thomas MacInnes
GAF's Resident Saturn Omnibus
Here's a gameplay demo clip of Kelly Slater's Pro Surfer. For me, it's just about the best thing to ever hit Gameboy Advance, a fantastic sports game that fits nicely within the Tony Hawk mold. If you've ever played the surfing competition in California Games, then you'll absolutely love this.
Controls are fairly simple but require some dexterity. You can perform grabs, flips, cuts and other cool stunts, rotate in the air, and perform barrel rolls inside the waves (where the big points are scored). You have to be careful not to crash and wipe out. Most of the moves are easy to pull off (Tony Hawk style) but a few of them require really precise timing to get right.
There is a lot of variety in beaches, offering different sizes of waves, moving in different directions, and score multipliers that emphasize different areas. Some locations emphasize air stunts, others focus on the waves. In addition, each beach features challenges where you must perform specific moves to pass. New surf boards are awarded this way.
Nobody ever bothered to look at this game, as there was a Kelly Slater on the big consoles featuring 3D polygons. Even today, I can't find more than a couple YouTube videos and certainly nothing showing the game at its best. Weirdly enough, this short video of the demo mode remains the best showpiece.
Whatever. Kelly Slater on GBA is spectacular and an absolute must for everyone. You can still find boxed copies for next to nothing, so there's no excuse for passing this one up. Gamers are no longer thumbing their noses at the sight of lowly, "obsolete" 2D graphics, and thank goodness for that.
alf717
Member
The DS came and stole his money.
Daniel Thomas MacInnes
GAF's Resident Saturn Omnibus
Here's another gem for the GBA library: V-Rally 3, created by Eden Games and published by Infogrames. It's an extremely solid and playable racing title, offering a large number of cars and tracks. The visuals are rendered in 3D polygons and are arguably the best for the portable system. Gameboy Advance had very limited 3D powers, and it appears that programmers really had to hustle to make it work. Here, the developers certainly made the effort and it shows.
You can play with an external or in-car view. This video shows the inside view, which is how I preferred to play. There's an impressive amount of detail including road textures, trees and various objects. The dashboard shows off a steering wheel and pair of hands that move in time to gear box changes, which is very nice. As you can see, there's a bit of polygon warping on the track, which is nearly unavoidable without Z-buffering. Judging by this video, I'd have to guess the game's being rendered in quads, which usually shows that bending at the bottom of the screen. With PS One's triangles, you wind up with zig-zags all over the place (an issue that nobody seemed to mind, funny enough).
Once again, we have a "lesser" GBA title that was overlooked in favor of its 6th Generation console cousins. This is a mistake, as this portable version is perfectly playable and well worth your time. I can't think of a better use of polygons for the system, and for "realistic" rally racing, you can't do any better. Most of the driving games on the Advance just used Mario Kart "mode 7" effects for the roads, so having real curves, banks, hills and dips in V-Rally 3 is very welcome.
stranno
Member
Eden Games did the Playstation 2, Gamecube and XBOX versions.
The GBA game was entire developed by Fernando Velez and Guillaume Dubail, except the sound and production, handled by Infogrames. They also developed Driv3r, Astérix & Obélix XXL and Stuntman, long-story short, the best 3D games of the system, by far. And they did the same in DS and 3DS with C.O.P.: The Recruit and IronFall: Invasion, amazingly advanced games for both platforms.
I'd say they are the best developers ever worked for a Nintendo portable system, along with n-Space.
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ResurrectedContrarian
Suffers with mild autism
Seconded, GBA was pixel perfection.
alabtrosMyster
Banned
It was more than enough to do it much better than both the SNES and GBA combined.
The GBa was an interesting 2D system, but it has much less memory and storage than the CD based home systems from previous areas, just look at Castlevania:SOTN and many other PSX games, trickery or not, it did pretty well.
cartman414
Member
True. Its downfall though was its low RAM.
Sometimes I wonder if Gradius Gaiden would look even better with proper 2d sprites.
TheSadRanger
Banned
I used to think that Dawn of Sorrow was the much better game between Aria/Dawn. I kinda flip flopped though after replaying both again recently.
Dawn has the better OST hands down but I really like Aria's castle better and prefer Soma's GBA sprite. Dawn's castle kinda sucks and is a bit boring.
Pimpbaa
Member
SNES had no sprite scaling capabilities (unless you used the superfx chip to do it via software). It had to simulate sprite scaling the same way every previous system did, multiple sized versions of the same sprite that were displayed depending on the distance (and it usually wasn't many levels of pre scaled sprites). It only could scale and rotate backgrounds. Some games used that background layer to be a single sprite (a boss usually) and built the level with sprites but the background was usually black.
Could you name those games, because I have no idea how you could arrive at that conclusion.
Unless you consider "Mario" games (incl. yoshi), Mario Kart, Donkey Kong as the best 2D games on the platform.
Dr. Claus
Vincit qui se vincit
Street Fighter Alpha 3, Mother 2, Super Mario 3, Yoshi's Island, Final Fantasy 4, 5, and 6, Zelda Link to the Past, Donkey Kong Country 1, 2, and 3, Super Mario World, Breath of Fire 1 and 2, Phantasy Star, etc
Would you like more?
cartman414
Member
Dawn had better weapon balancing. The required soul fusion for a couple top tier weapons was uncool though.
Well, yeah. Other than Link to the Past I simply don't consider those to be the best games on GBA by far.
Especially not the Breath of Fire or Phantasy Star (over Golden Sun?). Those rarely make top GBA game lists.
I can understand if you're big into Nintendo platformers (Mario, Yoshi, Donkey Kong), that those are mostly ports (other than Wario Land 4?)
But almost everything else from the top lists isn't.
That's the thing with GBA library, it's so massive, there are like four new Mega Man Zero games on it, and three Mega Man Battle Rpg games too. If you're into Mega Man those might be the best GBA games for you.
You have to have very specific tastes for your top GBA games to end up being mostly ports.
Because in my GBA top list, I think the only port is Lttp.
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nkarafo
Member
This. And CPS2/3
Even the PS1/Saturn had a hard time porting games from those because of their measly RAM and slow CD format.
Fat Roms > CDs, anyday. The Neo-Geo CD even had some games with cut animation frames (or background frames) because the CD took too long to load them, despite the system being the same as the AES/MVS. Nothing could beat these massive solid state roms in the arcades and the later stuff from SNK and Capcom needed that speed to instantly throw all these animation frames in your face.
The GBA was good but also too low res. Devs would also mess up the colors to accommodate for the lack of backlight. Most color palettes in GBA games suffer from this and you need emulation and filters to improve them.
SpiceRacz
Member
Graphically, sure. But that's about as far I'd go with that statement.
nkarafo
Member
Super Metroid > GBA Metroid
SOTN > Any 2D Castlevania but also DS Castlevanias > GBA Castlevanias
Mario... seriously? The GBA doesn't even have an original 2D Mario for itself. And even the ports aren't as good as in Mario All Stars.
Can't comment on Zelda since i only played a few 2D ones.
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Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow had very consistent high quality through out, others were kind of more hit and miss in quality (like the Order of Ecclesia reusing not only tilesets, but whole areas multiple times in the game, still a great game though)
SOTN probably still had the most oomph overall.
It's so tough to rate iga-style Castlevania games, because they are all pretty, pretty good, other than Harmony of Dissonance distinctly standing out as one of the worst.
Thing with Aria of Sorrow is that it feels like the most polished and consistent out of the bunch, like a very, very strong entry overall. And definitely one of the best GBA games.
Super Metroid is one of the best games ever made, so it's hard to beat that by pretty much anything. It doesn't mean GBA Metroids weren't great, just not as great as the masterpiece.
stranno
Member
Havoc2049
Member
I loved/love my GBA. I had tons of fun with the Castlevania trilogy, Advance Wars series, Fire Emblem series, Golden Sun series, Iridion series, Gunstar Super Heroes, Phantasy Star Collection and Pinball of the Dead. As I never owned a GB or GBC, it was also fun to go back and play some of the classics on those systems as well.
cireza
Member
Not because it took too long to load them, that's because the console did not have enough VRAM to store all the data. Standard Neo Geo can address the entirety of its ROM instantly, the entire ROM is the VRAM, and the actual VRAM is small in size and only stores color data (palettes). So obviously, you can't replicate this on a system that does not offer instant access the data at all time. Almost all other consoles require loading data to be displayed in VRAM (NES is like the Neo Geo, otherwise the consoles we are used to have to load data in VRAM). Well, consoles like the SNES and MD probably rely on loading data in VRAM during gameplay for fighting games for example, so they can handle this, but they are cartridge based, and access the ROM is still pretty fast. However a CD console cannot do this at all.
If the Neo Geo CD had 1 more MB of VRAM (bringing it to 8), you would probably not have cuts in all the games released on it (with the exception of Art of Fighting 3, not too sure of the size of the full characters in memory for this game, probably pretty huge). Still, the console would not have been able to handle KOF 2K3 as this game can switch instantly between 6 characters, meaning that you need to load all 6 in VRAM.
This is what makes Neo Geo difficult to emulate on any system that cannot load the entirety of the game in its RAM.
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nkarafo
Member
I remember reading that they did the cuts to reduce the already slow CD loading. And i saw the cuts so i assumed that was correct.
Thanks for the correction. In both cases though, it's true that the fast ROM was needed.
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MrCunningham
Member
replying to an older post in this thread. But the GBA is closer to the 3DO and 32x in terms of producing 3D. Both the 3DO and GBA use ARM CPU's. The 3DO uses a 32bit ARM60 at 12MHz, while the GBA uses a 32bit ARM7tdmi that runs at 16.7MHz. The difference is that the 3DO has a dedicated math co-processor and multiple hardware DMA channels. The GBA CPU works like a general APU, and handles processing, graphics audio and everything else in one chip. Nintendo uses a software solution to emulate the functionality of the SNES on the GBA hardware, but because the GBA is a 32bit system, it is so much more capable than the SNES in many respects. There are plenty of examples of 3D games running on the GBA that could never run on an SNES using a SuperFX2 chip.
Pimpbaa
Member
VRAM is video ram. The only thing loading into it is what is being current displayed (and always a very small amount of ram). Older consoles had multiple types of ram. Any CD system loaded data into it's system ram, not vram. And the rom on a cartridge based system back them was like pre-loaded system ram, not vram. If you look at the specs for the Neo Geo CD, it's had multiple different types of ram (or ram dedicated to a particular task). It's vram in particular was only 512kb.
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Daniel Thomas MacInnes
GAF's Resident Saturn Omnibus
I certainly agree with everything here, but I must defend Harmony of Dissonance, which I loved. It was my favorite of the GBA Castlevania trilogy. The only thing I would change is that the main relics should be randomly placed throughout the castle, which would enable multiple play-throughs. In fact, that’s something that could easily be done by hackers or indie devs, if not Konami themselves.
alabtrosMyster
Banned
This is fine, the thread is about convincing someone that the GBA is not the pinnacle of 2D pixel art capabilities.
So SOTN destroys any GBA castlevania game in that sense, the spirtes and background have more colors on the PSX, they are better animated compared to their GBA counterparts, everything is also more detailed because it runs at a higher resolution. - SOTN is still arguably the best game in the series, but this may be more contentious.
Same is true for any game that was on pretty much any other system as well as the GBA:
SF alpha 3 - the GBA verson doesn't hold a candle to any version released in the same time frame.
Multiple versions
Mortal Kombat 3 on the GBA
Arcade
I would buy a classic style Game Boy if they made it. A small portable machine with good controls and cheaper games.
Birdo
Banned
People say The Minish Cap is one of the best 2D Zelda games (Much better than the crap DS ones).
GBA also has one of my fave' Mario Karts.
Red Crayon Aristocrat
Member
That's a good question, I always found it surprising that they let a brand as recognizable as that die.
RainblowDash
Gold Member
Nah, the screen was too low res and the audio was ASS.
Stiflers Mom
Banned
What are you talking, dude.
The SNES' horizontal resolution was just 256. That's a measly 16 pixels wider.
And it seems to me, that there were some "real" games on that platform..
On topic: I had a GBA back in the day, I just wished it had a backlight screen from the beginning.
cireza
Member
SNES was 256*224, still pretty low actually.
MegaDrive was 320*224 (it could handle 256*224 as well, some games use it), the pixels were nice and square and through a RGB/Scart cable, the clarity is much better on this console. But this also has to do with the poor quality of the signal on SNES. Neo Geo is 320*224 as well, but the AES has the most shitty output possible, it is a real pain to get a clean signal out of this machine. Neo Geo CD however has a fantastic RGB signal, just as good as Sega's consoles. Because of this, I could never switch to Neo Geo AES.
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Falcs
Banned
If Nintendo announced a new Gameboy in 2019 there would probably be stupid outrage on it not being "inclusive" or that it's "sexist".
This is fine, the thread is about convincing someone that the GBA is not the pinnacle of 2D pixel art capabilities.
So SOTN destroys any GBA castlevania game in that sense, the spirtes and background have more colors on the PSX, they are better animated compared to their GBA counterparts, everything is also more detailed because it runs at a higher resolution. - SOTN is still arguably the best game in the series, but this may be more contentious.
Same is true for any game that was on pretty much any other system as well as the GBA:
SF alpha 3 - the GBA verson doesn't hold a candle to any version released in the same time frame.
Multiple versions
Mortal Kombat 3 on the GBA
Arcade
Uh, making the arcade picture use smooth linear filtering while GBA images use nearest pixel filtering is misleading AF.
Well, I mostly objected to the statement "that GBA is mostly a port machine, and that pretty much all of the best GBA games are ports".
Which is true only if your favorite games are mostly Mario or Donkeykong platformers.
GBA has one of the strongest 2D game libraries (even discounting the ports), yes, there are a couple individual games such as Super Metroid, Lttp and SOTN are arguably better than new entries on GBA (Castlevania AOS, Metroid Fusion and Zero Mission, Minish Cup).
GBA arguably wins on having all those amazing games on one platform. It's the strength of the overall library (of new games and some ports) which sets GBA so far apart.
Schrödinger's cat
Banned
Hopefully, James Stewart, my Producer colleague at HotGen studios - the game's developer - will see this post and get a nice fuzzy feeling.